“A culture of domination is anti-love,” black feminist philosopher bell hooks wrote. Without love, she warned, those fighting one form of domination—imperialism, sexism, racism, classism—would find themselves in service to another. Too many Mormons go one further. They invoke love in the service of domination. Hooks died this month, and…
Author: @Monya_PostMo
Raised Mormon in the American South. Grateful to have left the Church, grateful for many things it taught me
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Should I stay or should I go – and why?
Research project on why people leave the Church should also explore reconciliation My mind began whirling when Jana Reiss announced she and her research partner Benjamin Knoll were launching an in-depth project to see why Mormons leave and have left the Church. (See here for the Kickstarter announcement). It’s an…
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Dallin H. Oaks & LGBTQ compromise: Mormon apostle shucks accountability
“It’s a study of power.” That’s how Taylor Petrey sums up his fascinating book on sexuality and gender in modern Mormonism, and that’s the phrase that kept going through my head as I listened to six hours of Mormon Stories podcasts about Dallin H. Oaks’s November 12 talk at the…
Peculiar Pod-O-Rama (mid-Nov): wise newlyweds, and a November policy from You-Know-Who
Mormonland is packed with podcasts. Here’s a random sampling of my (too limited) listens over the last fortnight. Cole & Kent make the cutest, wisest couple ever Latter Gay Stories (1:21) Gay men who come out well into adulthood (and often after marriage to a woman) often talk about going…
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Peculiar Pod-o-rama: mixed- to matched-orientation marriage, and more
Image: “Roscoe Considers Recording a Podcast” by zoomar is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 Halloween brings honest queries on whether homosexuality is caused by possession; scholars track gay Mormons’ journeys and mental health Mormonland is packed with podcasts. Here’s a random sampling of my listens over the last fortnight.* Human…
Performing Mormon womanhood
LuLaRoe, Judith Butler, the Family Proclamation, and our invisible Heavenly Mother In the 1990 book Gender Trouble, queer philosopher Judith Butler proposed that gender is not a fixed trait but one that must be constantly performed. Now she’s an academic superstar. But decades earlier, Mormons made a pretty penny perfecting…
Suicide ideation in non-straight Latter-day Saints: what hurts? What helps?
For National Suicide Prevention week, Main Street Plaza reviews a study of active and former Church members A team of researchers investigated whether active Latter-day Saints were different from inactive and former members in terms of how and how much they thought about suicide. Over 600 people identifying as sexual…
Elder Holland, consequences, and cruelty
On Monday Aug 23, the President of BYU announced an “office of belonging” to “combat prejudice of any kind.” Sexual orientation was specifically mentioned. That same day, Jeffrey Holland, former president of BYU and member of the Quorum of the Twelve, denounced “flag-waving” and “parade-holding” around “this same-sex challenge.” He…
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Psychotherapy, Mormonism, and me
When I read advice for counseling Church members, I did not expect to see myself A while back, searching for something else, I came across an academic paper advising psychotherapists how to treat Mormon clients. I began reading the article, by Stephanie Lyon at the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological…
Worthy to Enter vs Welcome to Enter
It will take more than policy changes to make the LDS Church a welcoming place Spend half an hour in the right sector of Twitter, and you’ll be besieged by hopes and dreams for the LDS Church to become more welcoming. If you want a good example of a welcoming…